Main menu

Required listening: September

In the late 2000s, veteran dance indie label Robbins Entertainment was seeing major success with one of their artists, Cascada, which had a number of Billboard-charting hits that broke through into the pop realm, a few years before EDM finally became mainstream. Another artist on the label, September, probably should have seen at least the success of Cascada, with a diverse, pop-friendly set of songs that were many times stronger than Cascada’s output.

September was the stage name of singer Petra Marklund through a series of Eurodance albums. While she started off in Europe, Robbins began to introduce her to the states with the release of “Satellites” in 2006. The track was a top 10 song on the dance charts, which was an encouraging start for the artist.

The catchy track was a great introduction to Marklund, and led to additional releases by Robbins, including “Cry For You,” above, and “Can’t Get Over,” below, in 2007, both continuing the pop-friendly dance feel of “Satellites.”

Robbins released a compilation of September’s second and third albums in 2008, under the title “September,” and selected some of the strongest tracks from both. Their selections were spot on, and the album was a great representation of September’s output.

Around the same time, British label Hard2Beat also took notice and began to release September’s music, but remixed the tracks a bit to try to help them get a boost on the charts. Robbins picked up those remixes, and in the case of “Cry For You,” saw September’s biggest success.

The remixes were paired with higher-budget videos that added a lot of flourish and color to the songs, while still keeping the focus on Marklund. Neither remix was drastic, but did add a bit of an edge.

After a somewhat quiet period, September returned, fresh off of success in a Swedish signing competition, with an English version of “Mikrofonkåt” called “Me and My Microphone.” A second U.S. album, “Love CPR,” provided two other singles (and stronger, in my opinion), “Party in My Head,” above, and “Hands Up,” below.

Also released was the video for “Resuscitate Me,” below, that fell more into September’s earlier dance-pop sound.

Marklund more recently switched to recording under her own name, and with it, a change in sound (and language; she recorded her most recent album in Swedish). I certainly hope more music comes under the September moniker and sound to come, given the strength of the output to date, but it’s hard not to sympathize with Marklund wanting to try something different.